Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html <comment><USER3> Title is slightly misleading! Most of them are Islamic but not Arabic. Khawrazmi [1], Karaji [2], Khayyam [3], and Tusi [4] were all Persian. Ibn Haytham wrote only in Arabic though.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al- Khwarizmi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al- Karaji](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Karaji)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharaf_al-D%C4%ABn_al-%E1%B9%A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharaf_al-D%C4%ABn_al-%E1%B9%AC%C5%ABs%C4%AB)

<comment><USER4> It's a shorthand; "Arabic" or "Islamic" mathematicians were from a wide range of religions, ethnic groups, regions, etc.

It's similar to the way we call all of the mathematicians of ~ 500 BCE – 500 CE "Greek", even though most of the later ones were Roman citizens living in Egypt or elsewhere.

Or the way we call Mesopotamian mathematics generically "Babylonian", even though most of it was from other cities, and some of the relevant developments lumped in are from before Babylon per se existed, done by people of a different ethnic group who spoke a different language.

Or the way Soviet scientists are often called "Russian".

<comment><USER5> The Greeks living in Egypt were actually Greeks, even during the existence of the Roman Empire.

The Persian mathematicians living in Persia in the times _after the Islamic conquest_ simply weren't Arabs, exactly like the Greeks weren't Romans _after the Roman conquest_.

One doesn't get the new ethnicity by being occupied.

<comment><USER6> This is not true. They were likely ethnically Egyptian or Phoenician or Libyan but had Hellenic names. In the same way the Iranian mathematicians in the article had Arabic names. Culture and language often cross ethnic boundaries and it's up to historians to piece it all together.

<comment><USER7> > Iranian mathematicians

In the middle ages, there was greater Persia and two Iraqs (Iraq al-Arab to the west and Iraq al-Ajman to the east which is today's western and central Iran).

If we are being pedantic, either the polymaths in question were Persian (which they are) or Iraqi Arabs, not Iranians. In fact, Persian empire also encompassed parts of modern day Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan, until they came under the Turcko-Mongol rule.

Refs:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanid_Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanid_Empire)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Intermezzo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Intermezzo)

<comment><USER4> dingoegret: your sibling comment here is dead.

Anyway, "Persia" (Persis) comes from the Greek version of "Pars". Persians call their language "Farsi", from the Arabic version, "Fars". These all have the same origin, and date back millennia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many Islamic (not just Arab. Also Persian and others) scholars were on the right track about identifying evolution, and far from the evolution denying general populace today.

See the short "history" section in this article: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_evolution](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_evolution)

<comment><USER9> Wow, I had no idea! "[they] were on the right track" is an understatement.

 _... on what he referred to as the "gradual process of creation." He stated that the Earth began with abiotic components such as "minerals." Slowly, primitive stages of plants such as "herbs and seedless plants" developed and eventually "palms and vines." Khaldun connects the later stages of plant development to the first stages of animal development. Finally, he claims that the greater thought capabilities of human beings was "reached from the world of the monkeys."_

<comment><USER10> I wonder, though, to which extent that was somewhat idle speculation, similar to Democritus stating that the world consists of atoms 400 BCE, without really any evidence for it (let alone a fully formed theory).

<comment><USER9> A bit more from this fascinating topic:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah#Biology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah#Biology)

It seems like he had a fully formed theory which is pretty accurate.

<comment><USER10> A bit late now, but FWIW I don't think from the cited quotes one can deduce that he had anything approaching a fully formed theory; in fact I'd say it's very similar to Democritus idle musings.

<comment><USER9> Yes. The quotes didn't have any indication of a full theory. However, I find it difficult to believe that they reached so many accurate conclusions without a proper base theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The word Algorithm comes from a mathematician named al-Khwarizmi. Many words that begin with Al (Arabic definite article) are of Arabic origin. Alcohol is another one :)

<comment><USER12> I was told of Algebra coming from Al-Jabr meaning "number games". I was surprised I didn't see this mentioned in the article, until I found the book mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's biography [1]. The book's title is "Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala" but no translation is given and Google's translation "Al Jaber account and interview" is not helpful. Can anyone confirm or deny the explanation I was given?

[1] [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Al- Kh...](http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Al- Khwarizmi.html)

<comment><USER13> جبر, in transliteration, jabr, is the root of the word and the closest meaning is to bring (with a possible connotation of doing so against the entities natural inclination or state) back together parts (in healing).

To my mind, mathematically it would be closest to the literal concept of integration, but that is calculus and not what is generally considered to be algebra.

<comment><USER14> I associated al-jabr as classification. The 'back'ness felt more like bring back order by arranging same kinds on same sides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am not sure why this is a surprise. The early Islamic period was a cultural golden age while Europeans were lost in a dark age. Many contributions from that period resulted in advancements for mathematics, exploration, literature, astronomy, and other ares that are still felt today.

</comment><comment><USER16> 1- Everyone who writes in the same language is from the same country and ethnic group.

2- Everyone who wrote in Latin is Italian

3- Newton and Descartes wrote in Latin

THEREFORE:

::: Newton and Descartes are Italian.

Impeccable logic !

Another gem of flawless argumentation is to say "who cares about ethnicity?! and let's just move on". Well it's been almost two millennia of misunderstanding and misrepresentation. Why don't we just get this very simple fact correct and apply the same intellectual scrutiny that we apply to other areas here as well?

IMHO This is just inexcusable sloppiness and to be honest beneath any human being with a modicum of culture.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> > Algebra was a unifying theory which allowed rational numbers, irrational > numbers, geometrical magnitudes, etc., to all be treated as "algebraic > objects".

> It gave mathematics a whole new development path so much broader in concept > to that which had existed before, and provided a vehicle for future > development of the subject.

> Another important aspect of the introduction of algebraic ideas was that it > allowed mathematics to be applied to itself in a way which had not happened > before.

</comment><comment><USER17> Nearly all of the great "arabic" scholars were not arabic at all, they simply wrote in the arabic language. Most of then were Tajik or Uzbek ethnicity.

<comment><USER18> Arabic, Turkic, Persian, Moors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> most of it was mathematics they learnt from translated books from Sanskrit , Prakrit ( In India ) and Mandarin(Chinese) . None of it was original Arab work , most of Arab historians who came along with invaders have mentioned in detail how learned people were taken in as slaves to translate works in arabic

<comment><USER18> What do you mean none of it is original, we are talking about a 400 years of process here, science always takes inspiration from all prior studies, do not discredit thousands of scientists that actually inspired western science. Also they were Muslim scientists different ethnicities, e.g Persian, Turkic and definitely Arabs as well.

<comment><USER20> He means none of the work is original.. neither the number system.. nor the additive and series based mathematics.. it's just a translation.. based10 numbers have been inuse in India for thousands of years.. it's like Columbus finding America..

<comment><USER18> It is absolutely not "just a translation", they greatly improved and introduced new concepts over prior work of Greek and other scientists considerably. The volume of novelties of Muslim scientists of the time is huge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't know if things changed in last twenty years, but I consider at least basic knowledge of Al-Khawrazmi pretty common, hardly what I would call forgotten.

</comment><comment> La-ang I'm pretty sure 99% of the comments are from Arabs/Persians/Berbers backlashing one another over who is who. can you stop arguing and move on to the next article please xD

</comment><comment><USER22> Let's not forget that the Islamic world was key (though not alone) in preserving our scientific and cultural knowledge.

At that time, Islamic society was quite modern and tolerant - and even often the destination for persecuted religious groups such as the Jews in Spain.

It is absolutely clear that modern Islam is, in fact, much more "conservative" than it used to be in the beginning. Indeed, the very beginning of Islam was a radically progressive movement in the region. It freed slaves, it gave rights to women, it treated with other religions and it abhorred hereditary and even defacto differences between humans. Many of the things that we now find so backwards were a) not as strict at the time and b) much more advanced than other societies in the region. A good example is the difference between the initial Islamic state and the Persian empire. The Persians didn't even fully understand that they were dealing with a sort of grassroots movement, and were constantly trying to find the equivalent of a high status ruler to talk to. But early leaders in the Islamic world were completely different, living in normal or even poor circumstances and operating in a much more democratic manner than was the norm.

Later, these societal properties were the reason that the Arabic world was able to preserve and advance science and culture. Sadly, this did not last into this century, but the reasons for this are complex and almost surely political.

I say this is important to remember because we need to realize that religion and - further - ethnicity (and of course race) are not ingrained attributes determining who is conservative. We need to remember that there was a time when Islam was the paragon of reason and rationality, while Christianity was the embodiment of fanatic action.

In the end, it is all politics, not the people. We do well to remember these things, because it keeps us from condemning other cultures, as it so often happens!

<comment><USER23> Islam is largely Arabic, but is it the case that things attributed to Arabia are mostly Islamic?

<comment><USER22> Not at all, the Koran is written in the context of Arabia at the time. This is not a matter of interpretation, the book itself references local customs and laws. Therefore, our understanding, the practice and everything else in Islam is crucially shaped by the society in Arabia, and the change it brought to it. I think it is best read and understood in terms of the Delta - the change - <USER2> meant to convey (but that is my opinion).

On the other hand, however, much of the Arabic language and customs are of course shaped by Islam. For example, one difficulty of interpreting the Islam is that the words that are used now convey the connotation that was coined by centuries of religious practice, and it is difficult to know exactly what they originally meant. In addition, much like the Bible (translations), it coined many terms and semantic concepts.

Overall, the question you pose it not answerable in any way. Interpreting the core - the Koran - does not have a unique solution. And even though Islam has taken great care to preserve the text, traditions and reasons behind them, it is not clear cut. For example, the large majority of Muslisms prescribe to the Hadiths as interpretation and additional norms, but there are also Hadidths stating that you should not do that, and the Koran is enough. But on that basis, many more interpretations would be possible. Paradoxically - and in contrast to Christianity - the Muslisms who rely primarily on the book alone, are much more progressive than the ones also relying on the traditions.

I don't think your question will find a true answer.

<comment><USER24> > the Muslisms who rely primarily on the book alone, are much more progressive > than the ones also relying on the traditions.

As an ex-Muslim, the way I see it is: If you were to rely primarily/only on the Koran, it is because you want to justify and legitimate your own agenda. The Koran is very flexible and can be either very progressive or very conservative, strict and violent.

So you make your pick and then find the particular "bayt" that supports your claims :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> At least it's not Muslim Math! /s

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embMAtagQiU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embMAtagQiU)

</comment><comment><USER26> Interestingly, it was the Arabic conquest of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa and subsequent control of the sea lanes that cut western Europe off from the east. Intellectual commerce between east and west was greatly curtailed after the Byzantines started losing badly. It wasn't until the Battle of Lepanto that western Europeans started to have more or less free access to the east again.

There is no denying that in western Eurasia the Mediterranean was the seat of high culture and learning until about the 17th century.</comment>


5G Was a Mistake (Punctuationless Shout) - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/xLkqVto <comment><USER2> In /r/crypto there's a monthly wish list thread where people can wish for articles (or other stuff) from the community. If there was such a thing for HN I would wish for this: A technical article with perspectives from people actual in-the-know about 5G, describing how/if 5G is actually going to enable things like this in a way not possible with 4G.

I can't understand why IoT would benefit from 5G, it can't be the lower latency can it? Is the energy consumption lower?

To me, 5G just feels like an enormous hype train.

<comment><USER3> I'm arguably in IoT, though I really dislike the term. The argument for 5G in IoT is that there will be more total bandwidth available. If even if every toaster, toilet, fridge, and smoke detector used category M1 LTE, I'm skeptical we'd have a bandwidth problem. That's more of an issue with mobile video streaming than anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I doubt 5G will ever be deployed to the density where it replaces wired Internet. It's just too expensive, and there are too few reasons to pay for it.

The use case where everything on your WiFi goes through a VPN seems like bad design to me. Each endpoint should care about it's transport-layer security; why trust the WiFi router?

I also don't think "consumers" are going to want to pay for the add-on on their Verizon bill for a 5G connected refrigerator. The greed of the telcos should kill the IoT dystopia before it becomes much of a problem.

<comment><USER5> The manufacturer will just get a contract so the refrigerator can connect to data networks worldwide for a fixed period, similar to how navigation devices get their traffic updates.

The manufacturer has the bargaining power to overcome the telcos limits and they have a strong incentive because it's planned obsolescence that has no workaround.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This could be renamed "5G misunderstandings rant".

Standalone 5G NR-U using unlicensed spectrum is critical to 5G. It can shortcut cellular operators like Verizon and AT&T. In business jargon this is called "new verticals". (You can get unlicensed spectrum in LTE in some areas and some cities but it's still sketchy).

NR-U enables local private application specific 5G networks. You also get open mobile broadband 5G services from new service providers such as existing cable operators, internet service providers or neutral host service providers. Traditional internet service provider can use 5G NR-U to replace copper. Internet traffic can go into fiber directly from your personal microcell in you apartment/house. Or it can replacement for the copper in old apartment buildings.

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't see how 99% of this is specifically applicable to 5G. It's just faster mobile internet. Anything you can do with it you can do with 4G, just possibly not quite as fast. So why the worry that 5G is going to cause issues?

</comment><comment><USER8> Well I work for a telco and I really don't see anyone excited for 5G. If anything it looks like a bad idea to everyone.

<comment><USER9> Exactly, it's not that different from 4G and is going to perform pretty much the same, but it will require new phones and will provide an excuse to increase prices for mobile internet plans.

<comment><USER10> If you are a business, and a buildout to get fiber is in the thousands, and a 5G contract is the same monthly rate as a wire, maybe you want the flexibility to switch carriers more often without additional fiber buildouts.

A better use case is SD-WAN. You already have fiber to your building, and you want a supplementary connection in the event the fiber line gets severed, to ensure business continuity and no outages. At the right price its a no brainier to replace SD-WAN 4G modems with 5G modems.

5G is coming for dsl/cable/fiber, not to get everyone to replace their phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Actually I think that China will get all of it, since they seems to be the only one to master the technology. They will not let you use all the energy you want, they will just plan the usage and let you use the energy you can use based on your citizen score. Everything will be monitored thanks to 5G, and they will save the human kind.

Edit: I forgot sarcasm was not really appreciated on HN</comment>


High-Profile U.S. Hacker Deflects Attack on His Site by Redirecting It to Mossad - <AUTHOR> http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712308 <comment><USER2> That is a bad website.</comment>


Choosing the wrong programming language to build a startup - <AUTHOR> https://huseyinpolatyuruk.com/choosing-the-wrong-programming-language-framework-for-your-startup/ <comment><USER2> Programming languages are the biggest tar pit. Too often I get distracted by language features instead of just doing what works. With experience, I grew to appreciate simple languages like C, Scheme, and SML because I could focus on being productive rather than debating which language features to use. More code less abstractions.</comment>


Dust: A Blocking - Resistant Internet Transport Protocol [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://blanu.net/Dust.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Brandon Wiley quote:

"The Dust paper is actually old and documents Dust v1, which only makes the traffic look random. Dust v2 includes the polymorphic layer, which takes the randomized output and shapes it to fit the probability distribution of a target protocol. Unfortunately, there is not yet a paper for Dust v2.

I'm working on making Dust into a library which can be used in other programs, as well as a SOCKS proxy, so there will be multiple options for integration. I'm not sure what the best way to integrate it into a Java application would be, but I'm happy to work with you guys to make this happen."

zzz;)</comment>


Show HN: 30 Day Challenges - Feedback Wanted - <AUTHOR> http://30daychallenges.net/

<comment><USER2> I think there's a lot of potential here. If it grows a lot, I could see a lot of cool things you could do with the data. I'd definitely be interested in reading a blog sort of like OkTrends (<http://blog.okcupid.com/>) for personal goals.

Also, I wasn't able to access any of the forum posts. I wasn't redirected to the login page, so I'm not sure what's wrong.

Good Luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I've fixed the forum posts, and I'll have a read of OkTrends, seems interesting - not enough data to use as of yet, though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice idea for a site.

Design feedback: Perhaps this is just my personal preference but I found the text very difficult to read (typeface choice + not enough leading). I also could barely make out hyperlinks because the colour was so close to the rest of the text and there was no underlining.

I'm using Chrome on a Mac.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've changed the font type from the "ultra thin" that it was to a normal weight, added some line-height and fixed the hyperlinks. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Hacking Education: A Contest for Developers and Data Crunchers - <AUTHOR> http://www.donorschoose.org/hacking-education

<comment><AUTHOR> Be sure to check out the judges list - some pretty notable folks from the edu side (Joel Klein, Wendy Kopp) and the tech side (Fred Wilson, Anil Dash) of things.</comment>


Persai launches, now called Pressflip - <AUTHOR> http://teddziuba.com/2008/07/persai-is-now-pressflip-and-it.html

<comment><USER2> When I pressed "flip" to signify that I did not like the content, it bought me to a login box. I have decided that the content they gave me is not useful, and their response is to ask me to create an account with them?

This is the point where Uncov would have posted a 'FAIL' picture.

<comment><USER3> And how would you handle personalization without an account?

<comment><USER4> Cookies identify computers, which is close enough to identifying people to work in the short term.

We usually advise startups never to make people create accounts if they can avoid it. Let new visitors do as much as they can without registering, but give them the option of creating an account if they want to save whatever state they've accumulated.

<comment><USER3> Cookies are ephemeral and people get pissed off if you set them to expire 14 years from now, for example. What these guys are doing is probably classifying data with SVMs (or something like that) and that takes time. From brief testing, their updates are not realtime. So I think having an account to personalize in this case isn't such a bad thing. You can search as much as you want but when it comes time to personalization, account is not a bad thing.

But in any case, I don't see how this product is better than Google News, for example.

<comment><USER5> "people get pissed off"

most people don't know what cookies are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Forget Pressflip, I want Uncov back!

<comment><USER7> _"... Forget Pressflip, I want Uncov back! ..."_

Got that covered with a new column at _"The Register"_. You got to read a bit harder... it's to the RHS of the article near the about box ~ [http://teddziuba.com/2008/07/announcing-my-new-column-at- th....](http://teddziuba.com/2008/07/announcing-my-new-column-at-th.html)

<comment><USER6> I know but that's like a castrated Uncov...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't like the new name, 'pressflip' makes it sound like it's focussed on newspapers. Presumably the idea is that you 'press' on things you like and 'flip' things you don't, but then shouldn't it be 'clickflip'?

Also, if anyone actually got around to creating an account, what do you think about the Google-style settings/signout thing in the top right-hand corner of the screen?

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems to work well enough. I put in topics, it spits out stories. I "flip" articles, they go away, hopefully some robot takes notice and makes the next set better.

But I can't help wonder what the bigger plan is for this service. It doesn't seem that a not-really-targeted but maybe-smart news recommendation system will fly -- who's the market?

</comment><comment><USER10> i guess the opposite of the 'aha' moment is a 'ha?!' moment

<comment><USER11> I think I'd sound more like a "huh!?" moment. Close though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Being asked what I'm interested in was a surprisingly novel moment. The economics of attention are favoring "pushed" information, which I hadn't consciously noticed until now.

</comment><comment><USER13> I actually kinda liked it. The UI needs work, but otherwise it's way better than half the crap out their.

</comment><comment><USER14> it sucks and how Uncov was stupid

</comment><comment><USER15> Wait, is this real?</comment>


Ask HN: Is any tool lacking for more companies embrace remote work? - <AUTHOR> I know there is a work culture in the way too, but aside from that, what kind of tool (if any) would make more companies decide to try remote work? <comment><USER2> The first hurdle isn't tool or tech-related; it's management. They need to buy in. If they don't, remote work won't work.

About half my team is remote, and that's not uncommon for my division. We use Slack for collaboration. It was rolled out recently - prior to Slack, it a mix of (lots of) email and Skype. We use BlueJeans for larger meetings.

For day-to-day work, this all works well. But, it's also ingrained in the culture - we've had many remotes for a long time.

For new project kick-offs, especially greenfield dev, it makes sense to bring the remotes into the office for a week or more. I've done this three times now over the past 5 years. It fosters a sense of team and also allows easy white- boarding and fast/effective collaboration.

All my remotes are within an hour +/\- time zone and a short flight away (office near DC, remotes in Carolinas and Mid-West). Teams spread across continents introduce more problems.

</comment><comment><USER3> My companies biggest concern is ensuring that people are still working while at home, when in the office they have the ability to walk around and see that you are at your desk. While it is still possible to be working on other things besides work, they at least see you are in the office and in front of your computer. When at home they've said in the past "We dont know if you're really working". For my position remote work would work great, if I dont have code to show for, I'm getting fired, but other positions in the company have a problem "proving" work I guess. So it comes down to a lack of trust and guarantee that people are still working while outside the office.

<comment><USER4> That's another problem with cargo cult work today: Work is commonly measured in time wasted instead of value created.

The reason for this is that when it comes to work society is still largely caught in Taylorism / assembly line thinking. When you had to maximise the output of an assembly line measuring work in terms of time made sense. With office / white collar / knowledge work this management approach simply breaks and it has been broken for decades: Mock work, people pretending to "work" while in reality they're only butts in seats is a widespread phenomenon that not only impairs productivity but mental and physical health as well.

It shouldn't matter how much time you spend on a task as long as it gets done before the deadline and you're available for others to ask questions or give feedback. The current system favours those who are less productive. It also favours those who've learned to game the system.

There are saner, more reasonable approaches to assessing work such as results- only work environments and value-based pricing. It's about time we adopt approaches like these instead of relying on 200 year old cargo cult management methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eye contact, Face-to-Face meetings, shared space, white boards. I think next generation VR will be a tipping point for remote work.

<comment><USER6> What exactly are we going to be seeing with VR that we can't see on a regular monitor now?

<comment><USER7> The success of the Microsoft Surface Hub shows that regular web meetings have a long way to go yet:

[https://convergenttechblog.com/2016/12/22/the-microsoft- surp...](https://convergenttechblog.com/2016/12/22/the-microsoft-surprise- surface-hit-of-the-year-the-surface-hub/)

Comments here are enlightening:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13166032](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13166032)

 _Its a product that finally got almost everything right when it comes to a digital whiteboard. And yes to another point that was raised here certainly integration with Mircosoft services was a plus. Its great to have a computer interface that is remote on half the board and white board interface on the other. You can mock up while you have the specs inches away from your face on a huge screen so everyone in the room can read and interact. The skype integration kills it as well; there 's been a number of times I've seen teams huddled around the board mocking things up with one or two people remote._</comment></comment></comment>


How Andrew Warner decides who to interview - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/how-do-i-decide-who-to-interview/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, like if he interviewed me - "My positive attitude to making profits had a downward effect on my profits". In other words, I haven't made a million, and I haven't got a success story.</comment>


Show HN: UX Insights on largest e-commerce app – Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://canvasflip.com/blog/index.php/2016/04/05/amazon-in-making/ <comment><USER2> Because the spirit of "Show HN" is for things people can try out or play with [1], this would probably be better as an "Ask HN". But even then, with all the links it would perhaps be best shared as a blog post and a regular submission.

[1]: Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


The Quantum Quest - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantum-quest.nl/ <comment><USER2> Cool they made a custom edition of a quantum circuit simulator that introduces concepts one by one. It's based on this general purpose QC simulator [https://github.com/Strilanc/Quirk#examples](https://github.com/Strilanc/Quirk#examples) (check the animated gif demo; very powerful stuff)

Lol... with V8 and SpiderMonkey getting faster and faster, quantum computing simulations in js are probably as powerful as anything that can be done in a lab these days ;)</comment>


App Developer Gives In To Lodsys In David-And-Goliath Patent Fight  - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/article/419-app-developer-gives-in-to-lodsys-in-david-and-goliath-patent-fight/

<comment><USER2> I guess the uproar over the sleaziness of patent trolls, and Lodsys in particular is over. A shame. I wish that these stories would stay in the news and at the top of Hacker News everyday until a positive change to the system is made.</comment>


Tech: The worst IPOs of 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2011/tech-producing-worst-ipos-2011

<comment><USER2> Warning: This site cookie bombs</comment>


Fintech UX: How Revolut Won 180K Users in 90 Days by Banking on Trustworthiness - <AUTHOR> http://melewi.net/blog/2018/01/02/how-revolut-won-180k-users-in-90-days-by-banking-on-trustworthiness/?utm_source=Hackernews&utm_medium=externalpost&utm_campaign=blog&utm_content=fintech_ux_revolut <comment><USER2> The "steps to download app" comparison is biased. For it to be fair, the second one should include the following steps as well: "User goes to phone" and "Hits download/install". If link in the SMS downloads an APK file directly, it's even worse (download, and then install).

I don't know how the workflow would look like on an Apple phone, though.

Edit: I should add that sometimes SMSs take a while to arrive (I'm looking at you, PayPal 2FA). That adds frustration and friction.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using Revolut for a while now. It's been recommended to me by a friend, and I must say the website and app experience did make the whole thing feel safe. Makes sense.</comment>


Praying Mantises: More Deadly Than We Knew - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/science/praying-mantis-strike.html <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.is/O3mNT](https://archive.is/O3mNT)

</comment><comment><USER2> They are vicious. In the Summer, I get at least one or two praying mantises in my garden and I regularly see them eating bees and other bugs while they are still alive and trying to escape.

<comment><USER3> Here's a video of this happening: [https://youtu.be/rwPaUma6R_k](https://youtu.be/rwPaUma6R_k)</comment></comment>


Blue Origin Launch Webcast - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI-tGVFg7PU <comment><USER2> This seems to be the fourth launch for this same rocket.

Interesting stress test with the parachutes.

Reddit thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/4opt20/blue_ori...](https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/4opt20/blue_origin_new_shepard_ns2_official_launch_thread/)

Here's the landing video from on board the rocket during descent.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNPpdHYD8jo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNPpdHYD8jo)</comment>


Seeking Candidates for Tech Impact Fellowship - <AUTHOR> https://impact.rithmschool.com/ <comment><USER2> What with recent events, we need to realize the benefits of diversity.

Glad to see that there is a serious push to utilize tech more in social good verticals. Will keep this in mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is perfect! I have so many friends who would LOVE to switch gears into tech (and use web development to save the world).

</comment><comment><USER4> It's so good to see bootcamps investing in talents. I'll definitely share this!

</comment><comment><USER5> is there an age limit?

<comment><AUTHOR> nope! all ages are welcome to apply.</comment></comment>


Sriracha Hot Sauce Catches Fire - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-21/sriracha-hot-sauce-catches-fire-with-only-one-rooster#p1 <comment><USER2> People who are not into hot sauces don't understand the idea that a hot sauce can actually have great flavor. In most cases they think it just burns. Huy Fong Sriracha is a great example of a great hot sauce with good flavor. At the extreme there's "Dave's Insanity", a sauce that is probably able to send you to the hospital yet, if used in moderation, has great flavor.

Tabasco? Really? Yuk. I can't understand why any self-respecting restaurant would even offer it.

<comment><USER3> As worthless as Tabasco is as a hot sauce (very), I think it works decently as a ketchup replacement. On french-fries, chicken nuggets, that sort of thing.

<comment><USER4> Yeah it's not great on it's own but it's a great ingredient. It also makes ketchup quite a bit better the twice a year I want it on something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I read about halfway through the article before I realized they weren't talking about sriracha literally catching fire. Good read nonetheless.

<comment><USER6> Yes, and I'm disappointed that they didn't share the photo of the astronauts with Sriracha that they kept talking about, I assume this is it: [http://meflyrocket.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/dinnerontheis...](http://meflyrocket.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/dinnerontheiss.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Wow, I was under the impression that they had to use special packaging for all of their food to keep crumbs/droplets at bay. That almost looks like a normal food setup, besides all the velcro.

<comment><USER7> I read an article recently about "space cuisine", which dispelled this myth -- it used to be that way, but what they go for now is more sticky stuff -- crumbs are still bad, but something like meatloaf with gravy would be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most hot-sauce (especially the hotter kinds) don't taste good at all. I attribute that to the heavy use of Habanero pepper, which is pretty damn hot, but Habaneros don't actually taste very good.

I've discovered a nice combination, however, that can be both hotter and taste better. Scotch Bonnet peppers[1] are widely used in the Caribbean Islands, and are _almost_ , but not quite, as hot as as Habaneros, but they taste MUCH better. OTOH, Naga Jolokia "Ghost Pepper" peppers[2] are much hotter than Habaneros, and taste, well... not any _worse_ than Habaneros, at worst. So, if you want to jazz something up to nuclear hot levels and keep it tasting good, load it down with Scotch Bonnet and then add just a few drips of Naga Jolokia pepper sauce.

This has become my "go to" combination for making really hot tex-mex type dishes, curries, etc. Yumm....

FWIW, my favorite brand for both (at least partly because it's available retail locally) is the "Tropical Pepper Co. brand)[3][4].

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_bonnet_%28pepper%29>

[2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_Bhut_Jolokia>

[3]: <http://tropicalpepper.com/product.asp?idProduct=94>

[4]: <http://tropicalpepper.com/product.asp?idProduct=135>

<comment><USER9> I think habanero peppers have a great flavor, but the heat usually overpowers them. Removing the seeds and gills, and adding vinegar and/or carrots can tame the heat.

<comment><USER10> You'd probably really enjoy Secret Aardvark, then: <http://www.secretaardvark.com/>

Reasonable heat level, really good flavor. They're not kidding when they say "dump on everything". Not the kind of hot sauce where you put a few drops for heat; this is the kind you can use several tablespoons of at a sitting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Tran's only supplier for the past 20 years has been Underwood Family Farms, an hour north of L.A" -- This is a pretty cool little factoid. I would have never guessed. A successful, locally made product, that does not need to sell itself as a "Whole Foods" type of ingredient.

<comment><USER12> Amazing that good products sell on their own, and don't need incessant moralizing about buying local.

<comment><USER13> or massive, multi-million dollar ad buys and "agency of records" to promote the product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I live in Minneapolis, which has a ridiculous large number of Vietnamese restaurants. Pretty much every one of them has Huy Fong sriracha on the table.

I don't know how long it's been common here, but it's been a long time. Honestly, it never occurred to me that there are places where people don't know about sriracha. It'd be like not knowing about soy sauce.

<comment><USER15> Weird, I grew up in Minneapolis, but now am in NYC and live half the year in Vietnam. No Huy Fong brand sriracha in Vietnam though.

<comment><USER16> It was created in the US by a Chinese Vietnamese American. It's jalapeno chiles. They don't have it in Vietnam.

<comment><USER14> It's actually a Thai sauce, so I'm not sure you'd expect to find it in Vietnam. It's just really common in Vietnamese restaurants in Minneapolis here.

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha_sauce>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> First, I've never heard it referred to as "Rooster Sauce", it's always been "Cock Sauce". Maybe I need to hang out with some higher class folks.

Second, while it's great on lots of Asian foods (Korean BBQ comes to mind along with Pho), I tend to prefer stuff like Texas Pete or Tabasco. I live in the South, so maybe that's why. A little Texas Pete on some pulled pork (vinegar-based) and collards makes it just right.

<comment><USER18> Sriracha is for asian food. Tapatio is for mexican food.

<comment><USER19> Try mixing some Sriracha in Mayonaise and slather it on a sandwich or have it with fries. Great combo IMO

<comment><USER20> That's actually how a lot of sushi restaurants make their spicy mayo sauce. Learned it from a chef and I tried it at home to great success!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love this article from 2009, especially the description of the drunks dialing the phone number on the front of the bottle to leave slurred messages of love.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/dining/20united.html?pagew...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/dining/20united.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone else experience that Businessweek has a 'laggy' site? In chrome - every once in a while my page fails to completely load and scrolling is frozen.

<comment><USER23> I think they must have some broken Javascript or CSS on the page, I had to resize my window to get the scroll bar to show up, despite the article extending well below the bottom of the window.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> And it's vegan: <http://www.isitvegan.com/2010/10/09/is-sriracha-sauce-vegan/>

</comment><comment><USER25> My wife makes some kind of super addicting baked chicken thighs using a sauce mixed partially of Sriracha and Korean Gochujang [1]

I don't know what it is in that mix, but you pretty much can't stop eating once you start it. I have relative, 3 or 4 years after trying a single piece of it, ask if they can have it when they come visit.

[1] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gochujang>

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been living in Vietnam for 3 months. At first when eating phở I noticed something was off. It took a few weeks to place the problem: no sriracha! Here they serve tương ớt that tastes more sweet than spicy and has the consistency similar to jello.

So a few weeks ago I found an import store that supplies a sriracha sauce from Thailand. Quite similar to Huy Fong's version... And enough to my "international" phở taste the way i like it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Also, suits are making a comeback! See also <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>. On the other hand, we like sriracha more than suits, for the most part.

</comment><comment><USER28> Single page version here:

[http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/98238-sriracha-...](http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/98238-sriracha- hot-sauce-catches-fire-yet-theres-only-one-rooster)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm surprised they didn't mention the best tribute to sriracha of all: <http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sriracha>

<comment><USER21> Uh, they did. There were a couple paragraphs on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I love how this article mentions that sriracha is shelf stable without the fact that it's due to the addition of Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Bisulfite. If you're willing to add that you can probably make anything last on a countertop, but alas they've removed it from my diet as a result.

Anyone know of a respectable all-natural version?

<comment><USER3> The concern should not be with "naturalness" but rather with toxicology. There are plenty of substances found in nature that will have you on the floor, and many substances which are not that are perfectly safe. "Is it found in nature" is a _really_ bad heuristic for assessing toxicology, I'm actually having trouble thinking of a worse way to do it.

<comment><USER30> This comment is silly and representative of why HN sucks these days. The natural ingredients of sriracha are peppers, sugar, garlic, vinegar, and salt. I'm fairly confident of their non-toxicity. Any heurestics other than not eating the two ingredients I mentioned were entirely of your own imagining.

I am reasonably certain that Potassium Sorbate is bad for me, and 100% certain it isn't beneficial.

<comment><USER3> If your concern is with those particular substances, for reasons other than the fact that they are not natural, that is fine, but that was not my take- away from _"Anyone know of a respectable all-natural version?"_. Apologies if I misunderstood your concern, but I don't think my misunderstanding was particularly unreasonable.

<comment><USER30> I am concerned generally with all non-natural substances, such as preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, etc. You didn't misread that part, and I don't think that's a bad heuristic. It's a very different thing to say that all non-natural substances are possibly unhealthy (and that it's practically impossible to determine which are and which aren't) than to say that all natural substances are healthy.

Sadly one could simply remove the preservatives from sriracha as long as refrigeration isn't a concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Stupid me thought this was a Vietnamese sauce since I always saw in it Vietnamese restaurants in the OC. It wasn't until I was outside the USA that I found it Vietnamese have never heard of the stuff and that it comes from Thailand. doh!

Good stuff though.

<comment><USER32> Even more confusingly, the Thai original is only vaguely related to Huy Fong's version. The ingredients are roughly the same, but the Thai version is runnier and more vinegary/sweet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Having practically grown up with this stuff, it's definitely been interesting to see its popularity skyrocket in recent years.

There's certainly a valid lesson in market adoption & product incubation to be had here.

</comment><comment><USER34> Could we just get a petition going or something to get this sauce in condiment packets? Last time I asked they didn't do this. No idea what the impediments would be (supply constraints? Fermentation?)

</comment><comment><USER35> My wife and I ran out of sriracha sauce a few months ago; panic ensued :-)

Seriously we use it all the time (and several recipes on my cookingspace.com site use it). Highly recommended!

</comment><comment><USER36> JoJo's is the only Sriracha...

<https://www.facebook.com/loveofjojo>

</comment><comment><USER37> I love spicy food, but I find Sriracha almost sickly-sweet. Anyone else prefer El Yucateco or Salsa Valentina?

</comment><comment><USER16> 91770 in the house</comment>


April 4th is Deletion Day - <AUTHOR> https://deletionday.com <comment><USER2> Only if April 3rd was Backup Day.</comment>


Ask HN: Want to contribute in Open source implementation of research papers - <AUTHOR> Hi, I am a JS developer and aiming to get into Research domain. Is there any platform where I could contribute to build a project based on ongoing research, like implementing a research paper? That would help me in getting exposure to research, build my research interest and also improve my coding skills. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Here is my humble recommendation:

1) Contribute to (or just read the code of) open source projects in order to improve your coding skills

2) Read up on existing research in topics you're interested in

I understand the desire to be efficient and kill two birds with one stone. However, finding a good, active, community built research project might be a bit difficult. Even if you find it, you may find that opportunities for you to contribute to it are very few.

Contributing to open source projects will give you a good opportunity to understand the open source contributing process (which you'll need to know when you do find that open source project you want to contribute to). It'll also allow you improve you coding skills while you're at it.

Reading research papers gives you much more bang for your buck in terms of developing your research interest, though is not very resume-able. But, who knows, maybe your reading will spark your own open source research project.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a specific field of research you are trying to get into? If so, pick a research paper/topic with practical industry applications, then implement and explain it in an easy-to-understand way. You can write a blog post (or series) about it and publish everything on Github. It may take a while, but personally I found that trying to explain a complex topic in a simple and practical way is the absolute best way to really understand it. Passively reading papers is not going to give you the same understanding. And using JS for this type of project is perfect, because lots of people are familiar with it. You will make research more accessible to everyone, which is something we need. Try to choose a project that's a good fit for JS. For example, something that heavily relies on optimized memory allocation and GPU operations probably isn't a good fit.

Be warned though, there are quite a few research papers, especially those coming out of Academia as opposed to industry, that are cryptic, lacking in detail, or not easily reproducible. And that's intentional. This isn't obvious when you read a paper, it will only become obvious when you actually try to reproduce it. These papers are the result of misaligned goals Academia in, where it's all about publishing as many papers as possible that look good on the surface. When In doubt, I'd recommend focusing on research that has a lot of interest from the industry. That's usually a safer bet.

<comment><AUTHOR> specific field would be machine learning. I regularly follow Karpathy's blog and his convnetjs library [1], and also Harthur's brain library [2]. yes, I also found a lot of papers cryptic and hard to follow

[1] [https://github.com/karpathy/convnetjs](https://github.com/karpathy/convnetjs) [2] [https://github.com/harthur/brain](https://github.com/harthur/brain)

<comment><USER2> What have you done so far in terms of learning machine learning? There's quite a few resources for getting a good foundation, if that's something you might need.

Ironically, looking dennybritz's comment, JS is particularly ill-suited for this, as, as far as I'm aware, there are no libraries for working on the GPU, which is tremendously useful for working with machine learning algorithms which usually are crunching lots of data.

However, I don't know much about karpathy's specific implementation and experiments, so there might be a reason he choose JS. I'm thinking its more likely to make visualizations easier rather than any computational reason though, so you might be stuck in a niche there.

<comment><USER3> You're right that JS is pretty ill-suited for implementing production-level Deep Learning architectures that operate on a lot of data, I think it's still well suited for explaining the concepts in a clear way. A lot of the models have intuitive (and visual) interpretations, something that can be nicely visualized with JS.

As for Karpathy's implementation, you're right, he chose JS for that reason. His library is meant as a tool for experimenting and teaching, not to deploy these models in production.

Op: Send me an email if you're interested in this (email in profile). I actually started something similar just recently at [http://www.wildml.com/](http://www.wildml.com/).

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice blog! Yes I am interested in Deep learning, although am just a newbie. Right now I just read around in several blogs to get the idea. As for JS visualizations, TonicDev[1] is a nice option if someone wants a IPython style notebook in JS

[1] [https://tonicdev.com](https://tonicdev.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would suggest you to have a look at [http://www.gitxiv.com](http://www.gitxiv.com)

Gitxiv is an online list combining research papers from arxiv and their implementations in github. So I would say its a great resource for what you are looking for.

Also, they run some kind of competitive implementation runs where you can collaborate with others to implement papers :

[https://github.com/GitXiv/DeepQA](https://github.com/GitXiv/DeepQA)

I am a JS dev as well interested in Deep Learning. I dont know your specific interest in this domain but I am happy to collaborate with you - if you are interested. You can reach me at raj at dhi dot io. I would suggest you to pick up python or lua. Lua is quite close to JS and Python is extremely easy to pick up as well.

<comment><USER5> www.gitxiv.com gives "Modulus | Application Not Found". [http://gitxiv.com/](http://gitxiv.com/) works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really can't give very good advice, but I'll try to say something...

There are several different types of open source projects and I'm not quite sure which kind you're looking for.

Firstly there are a lot of (often hugely popular) tools used by researchers that don't involve research directly. A good example is Jupyter (formerly known as ipython notebooks). Contributing to these projects is sure be of benefit to many people (probably more than anything else you could do), and may be a good place to learn skills because they're more likely to have good codebases written by skilled programmers. But if the project is already too large (like Jupyter), it may be a lot harder to get into.

Next up, anything that's scientific and written in javascript is most likely to be for user interface, visualisation, or just websites (PR) for research projects. For example interactive visualisations of algorithms. May or may not involve actual involvement to the research. For example I went to a seminar recently by a group of researchers here who create models for simulating the effects of policy changes for policy makers a number of government departments here. They need user interfaces for their tools, and for one project [1] apparently they're using something that generates forms on a webpage, but it's all written in Java and R, and they want to open source everything and get external contributions (the current code they have up is 2 years old). I'm not advertise them, just giving an example; there must be a number of other projects with similar needs. I don't know how you can find find them.

Finally, there may be projects that actually write the real meat of the research software directly in javascript. It sounds like this is what you want. But I don't think javascript is a popular language amongst researchers. Languages like MATLAB/Octave, Python, R, Mathematica, Magma/GAP, C, Java, Julia are mostly used. Checking my CS department's mailing list, the only mention of javascript is a project to write a Google Chrome extension to use the javascript API for an eye tracker [2]

[1]: [http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our- research/researc...](http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our- research/research-centres-and-archives/compass/compass-projects/a-modelling- tool-to-improve-the-policy-response-on-issues-concerning-children-and-young- people.html)

[2]: [https://theeyetribe.com/products/](https://theeyetribe.com/products/)

<comment><AUTHOR> yes it is true JS is not a popular language among researchers. what I aim is to have a research experience in the process of contributing to build research-oriented libraries, since I am new into the research domain and want to develop an active research interest. I read papers, but mostly they are quite cryptic or maybe I lack the basic knowledge for understanding them. Developing and contributing to a research oriented open source project will help me into properly understanding the research being done

<comment><USER2> Here might be a good place to start learning: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine- learning/](https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning/)

Much of what research is, is understanding what you're working on in the first place. Getting a solid foundation is a must, or you risk being very lost for some time, and will be fundamentally limited in what you can contribute.

<comment><AUTHOR> learning from that awesome course. on week 6 now :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Am I Hellbanned? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I recently submitted a story with a 4 letter word in it, and afterward the next story I submitted was immediately dead, so I presume I'm hellbanned.
I then tried to submit the same second story by means of a second account I have (with much less karma) that I rarely use, and it wasn't immediately dead, but was soon after submission, so now I wonder if it was the URL of the particular story that just goes dead for some reason.
So now I have to ask someone if I'm indeed hellbanned. The offensive story didn't get retitled, btw. So I don't know.
Thanks in advance for letting me know. <comment><USER2> No.

A recent submission of yours under this account was automatically marked dead as it was a link shortner.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for the explanation!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That 4-letter-word story is now the top link on HN, actually.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see that, and I notice you can see my 'Ask' post, so I guess I'm not.

Thanks.</comment></comment>


How can freelance software developers save chasing payment? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to decide whether to implement a monthly fee or a % around a new Saas payment product I'm building.<p>I'm after your opinions as you are the ones I'm trying to help as both founders and freelance developers. <comment><USER2> You stop chancing payments by getting paid upfront.

I book in monthly blocks and get 30% on work agreement signing, that books my time (non-refundable). I take the full cost - 30% / time booked. Then start billing 2-weeks before the project starts with payment due on receipt of invoice. That way, I'm on the hook. If we keep going, I just keep billing, I don't put them on the hook again for a new depisit—that is only to keep them from doing something like postponing or so I have some cash in case they cancel and I have to go find a new gig.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure how you got from the title to the question. How are these related?

I can tell you from my current experience with pricing, businesses seem to hate variable pricing, even when the fixed price (monthly fee) is greater than they would pay if paying a percentage (though my pricing was usage based not as a percent of x).

Percent feels like a tax, and nobody likes taxes.

You're probably thinking of it from the perspective of "the more money you make, the more money I make, I'm only charging you for the service". But that is likely not how the business is thinking of it. They're thinking that they do all the work, and you can't even give them a price of what they are going to pay. You'll just "take" more for everything that they work so hard to build.

If what you are providing is something they can't live without, like the App Store, then you can probably get away with charging a percent, and your customers may hate you for it.</comment>


Apple's New Ad Campaign: "If You Don't Have An iPhone, You Don't Have An iPhone" - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV2__tmrEbM

<comment><USER2> i assume that the adman behind this ad was a member of the tautology club: <http://xkcd.com/703/></comment>


BZFlag - <AUTHOR> https://www.bzflag.org/ <comment><USER2> I've made a couple of comments like this on HN before, but whenever you make a homepage for a project, whether it's a game, game engine, software library, command line tool or anything--please start by describing what the thing is in one or two sentences.

Here's what I thought when I clicked this link:

> BZFlag? Does this have something to do with zipping files? Meh, I'll click > and see what it is.

> A picture of some 3D rendered stuff, and download links for a bunch of > platforms... Is this a game engine? A physics simulator? Maybe if I scroll > down I'll find out

> Hmm, the project news doesn't tell me much... "A Flying tank", "Tanks with > Superpowers"... I guess this is a game where you drive tanks? I'll take a > look at the comments.

> Ohhhhhh, I see.

This could've been fixed by just having an h2 and a paragraph at the top saying "BZFlag" and "An open source tank-based warfare game with online multiplayer, going strong since 2008!" (or whenever the project started)

You don't necessarily need to have a tagline like that on every release page or documentation page, but if I end up on your site and delete everything from the URL except "projectname.org", I should be 2 seconds away from a simple description of what your project is.

With all that said, people seem to like this game, I may check it out later!

Edit: Looks like they added a tagline to the page. It's clear, it's obvious, it makes sense. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Web pages? Those'll never catch on if you ask me. The package info seems clear enough:

      $ dnf info bzflag | sed 's/^/  /'
      Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:29 ago on Thu 31 Oct 2019 22:24:31 GMT.
      Available Packages
      Name         : bzflag
      Version      : 2.4.18
      Release      : 3.fc30
      Architecture : x86_64
      Size         : 11 M
      Source       : bzflag-2.4.18-3.fc30.src.rpm
      Repository   : fedora
      Summary      : 3D multi-player tank battle game
      URL          : http://bzflag.org
      License      : LGPLv2
      Description  : BZFlag is a 3D multi-player tank battle game  that  allows users
                   : to play against each other in a networked environment.  There are
                   : five teams: red, green, blue, purple and rogue (rogue tanks are
                   : black).  Destroying a player on another team  scores a win, while
                   : being destroyed or destroying a teammate scores a loss.  Rogues
                   : have no teammates (not even other rogues), so they cannot shoot
                   : teammates and they do not have a team score. There are two main
                   : styles of play: capture-the-flag and free-for-all.

<comment><USER4> Alternatively, a 90's style site in keeping with the aesthetics of the game would be cool in its way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh wow, I played this game a lot about 15 years ago. I was in my teens and this game is the reason I learned linux system administration so I could run my own server. I built a computer with junk parts from my friend's dad's old parts bin and installed ubuntu on it.

I struggled with linux then but learned a lot. Some say I am still struggling with linux to this day.

<comment> WD-42 This game, Tux Racer, Chromium B.S.U. If you could get your graphics drivers to work, these were your reward. Learning linux was so fun back in the day! And the fact that you could just apt/rpm install them was mind blowing.

<comment><USER6> GL-117!

<comment><USER7> Oh wow, now THAT was a classic. I remember playing that on an old version of openSuSE... maybe 9 or 10?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of my favorite variants of this is the rabbit hunt. One tank is white (a rabbit) and everyone is supposed to hunt it. Whoever kills the rabbit becomes the new rabbit, right then and there. Only ever saw 1 or 2 servers running a game this way.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been playing this game for a long time now. The crowd has dropped off in recent years. I'd love to see it regrow.

What would be really cool, is a reboot form that worked for mobile.

<comment><USER10> That might just be it too. People wind up doing most computing on their phones. A game I used to play as a teen now has most of their users on their mobile apps while old players use their desktops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those who enjoy online multiplayer FOSS games in this vein, see also Teeworlds. [https://teeworlds.com/](https://teeworlds.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Man I used to love BZFlag - it looks like it's still active, I should get back on.

</comment><comment><USER13> A thread from 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7902802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7902802)

</comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately, due to the OSS nature of the game, it's super easy to cheat :/

The patches to wallhack and autoaim are literally a 2 min google search away, and the compile process is well documented and easy.

I wonder what kind of measures can be put into place without utilizing what essentially boils down to DRM?

<comment><USER15> hashing the binary?

<comment><USER16> You can't stop cheating even on a closed source software with an anti-cheat running with kernel privileges. The same idea applies to open-source, especially as any anti-cheat feature is open sourced too. No matter how powerful your anti-cheat protection is, it can be bypassed (There were ROP- based cheats recently on HN if you want to take a look: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21355058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21355058)).

At the very least, you won't be able to protect info like the position of entities and players (You need them even before you see the players to avoid problems, meaning anyone can create a wallhack or an aimbot).

If one could create a trusted environment, that would be a different story. I do think this is possible with cloud gaming. If you can't interact with the game memory, the game files or the underlying operating system, the best you can do should be macro or AI based on what's displayed on the screen.

<comment><USER17> You can't necessarily detect the cheat software, but you can detect the _behaviour_ of cheat software. Writing an algorithm that can play a first- person shooter at a superhuman level is pretty trivial, but writing an algorithm that plays like a really skilled human is vastly more difficult. This behavioural approach to anti-cheat is now highly practical thanks to deep learning.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhK8lUfIlc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhK8lUfIlc)

<comment><USER18> As long as the network and its weights are open-source, you can create adversarial examples automatically. So the idea is to run the auto-aim bot, but then run the network on your inputs backwards to morph your inputs to look more "human-looking".

Raw Autoaim Bot -> Neural Net (since its open source) -> tweak inputs until its considered a human -> send the tweaked autoaimed command.

<comment><USER19> The weights don't really have to be open-source though. After they are trained, they should be subjected to the same policies as database passwords to counter your attack, or to at least force the cheater to train the counter- network via the game.

<comment><USER18> > After they are trained

Are you suggesting that BzFlag sysadmins are going to be custom-training their own neural nets?

Based on my experience with LeelaZero, its far more likely for people to share weights with each other. And participate in community-training. Not everyone has the skill to spin up TensorFlow, carefully partition off training data, and monitor neural nets through training.

But almost anybody can download the "latest weight file" as a Cronjob and update their bzflag server every day or week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Provides a decent platform for competing ai robots [https://robocode.sourceforge.io/](https://robocode.sourceforge.io/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I believe this was my first time learning to compile a C++ project. This was 13 years ago; I was 14 years old. Great memories playing with others, chatting, building maps.

</comment><comment><USER22> Back when I was faculty at a .edu, I installed this game in my student labs and it got a lot of action, despite the availability of much newer games.

<comment><USER23> I think one reason for this is that the base variant is easy to understand and there's no 'map' to learn making it a great fit for casual, pick-up play. BZFlag is the OG Q3DM17.

<comment><USER24> At least you said Longest Yard and not Campgrounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I used to love playing this circa 2001. It's also great to learn programming games using OpenGL. Great to see this still going strong...

</comment><comment><USER26> Are you a fellow Tanarus refugee? I miss that game so much. I had the most flags in total in that game!

</comment><comment><USER27> I played this a lot with my sister on Pentium 3 Linux boxes. Good times.

</comment><comment><USER28> A great game for office Warfare. Low specs so everyone can play.</comment>


"Money doesn't interest me" – Creator of Blender talks about its future - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOTZnFeg <comment><USER2> must have already a lot of it then!

<comment><USER3> No, I think it's just a different philosophy around what is rich. You can work constantly and have a lot of money, but then you could be very poor in happiness or peace of mind.

Most things in life are best when they are balanced.</comment></comment>


Google Also Likes To Use FriendFeed For R&D; Reader Gets Conversations - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/11/google-also-likes-to-use-friendfeed-for-r-reader-gets-conversations/

<comment><USER2> Honestly, I'm a heavy user of Reader and have been wanting a conversations feature for a while. Sharing with other Reader users feels strange without it.

I've also never used FriendFeed or even looked at it.</comment>


Apple rejects Spotify's app update, Spotify calls approval process a 'weapon' - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2016/06/30/apple-spotify-app-war/#taNFjWs3TPqY <comment><USER2> Being able to reject competing apps is definitely a grey area. I understand and support Apple wanting to prevent apps from getting in the appstore for many reasons, but the moment the apps are competitive to Apple's other product lines, it seems pretty sketchy.

</comment><comment><USER3> maybe i'm slow but it just occurred to me that this apple rule is also why i cant get books on the audible app. i can only "add to wish list." also, i never understood why hbo had two different apps: hboNow and hboGO but now it makes sense.

in the future, i see this as a potential issue / challenge for podcasters who want to create a subscription business model and don't want to give 30% to apple

<comment><USER4> not really. The reason you can't buy books via the app is because the fee on iap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 2 days ago I was in a store just about to buy my first iOS device, an iPhone 6S. Decided not to do it for two reasons: 1) 50% app store bullshit like this and 2) 50% price</comment>


Software Firm Pastes the Rule of St Benedict into Its Code of Conduct (SQLite) - <AUTHOR> https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/26-october/news/uk/software-firm-pastes-the-rule-of-st-benedict-into-its-code-of-conduct <comment><USER2> Previous discussions:

• [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18313131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18313131)

• [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273390](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273390)

• [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273530)

• [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18297514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18297514)</comment>


Blerp Aims To Turn The Web Into One Big Forum - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/13/blerp-aims-to-turn-the-web-into-one-big-forum/

<comment><USER2> I cant help thinking "cool idea, awful name".

Seriously: it has connotations of throwing up on the page (which I guess is what it lets you do, but isnt exactly the nicest metaphor :))

I also cant help thinking that it might well result in "too many users". Forums stay manageable (in terms of the amount of data you have to assimilate / the number of "posts") because the user base is fairly small. Imagine a forum with a million users - and with a fairly small semi-fixed number of threads (static web pages Im thinking here more than blogs etc. where it _could_ work well). The noise is going to be epic and the potential of trolling insane... It isnt clear how they plan to handle that.</comment>


5 open source alternatives to Google Docs - <AUTHOR> http://opensource.com/business/15/7/five-open-source-alternatives-google-docs

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I've never tried any one of these. I'm a solid Google Docs user.

Is anyone here using one of these tools regularly?</comment>


Web Design Quotation tool - <AUTHOR> https://webdesignquote.beewits.com/

<comment><USER2> Just a quick comment. I noticed on the home page when playing with the form for calculating a quote. The total values at the bottom of the form don't display > 4 digits. At least not using Chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Woops - thanks for pointing that out. Will fix it soonest!

<comment><AUTHOR> Updated and fixed.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best affordable hosted blog service? - <AUTHOR>

Right now I'm using Tumblr as a personal blog, but their outage has finally inspired me to move to a paid service that's more suitable to long-form blogging. I know I could set up my own server, but I'd rather pay a small amount for a service I don't have to think about.<p>Does anyone have any suggestions for a relatively cheap service that I can plug into a subdomain? For those using CloudFlare- would you recommend it as method of reducing bandwidth usage? <comment><USER2> I'd say use Azure Websites: <http://www.windowsazure.com/en- us/home/scenarios/web-sites/>. You can easily select one of the many frameworks/blogs/CMSes from a list, and install it. Azure will automatically get the latest version from the official website and set it up for you.

The best part is that it's free to do this. Azure websites cost you nothing. If you need more power you can easily switch to dedicated servers, meaning that you have a lot more scalability.

Oh, and it supports a wide range of languages. Not just .NET, but also Java, Python, node.js, PHP, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to use Squarespace but switched to WordPress with a grid server web host (<http://www.simplexwebs.com/>) and I'm using a heavily optimised framework called Thesis (<http://jonnyrowntree.com/thesis>)

I also use CloudFlare have found that it loads my website faster and has doubled my traffic on most days. I'd recommend it, even if you have a fast server.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could try Orchard CMS on Azure websites. It is a CMS, but it has an out of the box "Blog" recipe that let's you get started without writing any code. Azure websites is cheap (and free if you use the free tier). You can deploy with git, or you can deploy with a canned Orchard CMS image already on the Azure portal if you don't want to touch any code.

</comment><comment><USER5> Blogspot? It's dirt simple to setup, you get your own subdomain and there are millions of things to customize. I'm using it for my blog (<http://bjourne.blogspot.se/>) and am satisfied with it. The google+ integration and fool-proof spam detection are nice benefits.

</comment><comment><USER6> I played around a bit with Scriptogr.am (<http://scriptogr.am/>), it's basically a static blog generator that runs on their server. All you have to do is add markdown files to a folder in your Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why not create a Jekyll blog on Github Pages? It's free and fairly simple to use (once you've set it up)...

</comment><comment> saiko-chriskun www.squarespace.com ?</comment>


School Rankings by College Major - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703376504575491704156387646.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read <comment><USER2> If the page hangs loading, with nothing displayed, try adding "127.0.0.1 nik.io" to your /etc/hosts. That made it come right up for me, and the script it loads from there (/v1/nikio.js) apparently isn't essential to the page.

Anyway, I question the accuracy of this. MIT #8 in engineering (it should be in the top 3), Stanford not in the top 10, and Caltech does not even break into the top 25?

<comment><USER3> I too question this the moment I noticed MIT, Stanford, and CalTech weren't at the top...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was mildly surprised to see so many categories dominated by state universities. It's a nice testament to public schools in the US.</comment>


MIPS Announces I7200 32-bit CPU with New NanoMIPS ISA - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/12699/mips-announces-i7200-32bit-cpu-with-new-nanomips-isa <comment><USER2> It's always nice to see new CPUs and new ISAs with interesting new architectures. The overwhelming commercial success of x64 and ARM seems to have reduced the investment in these areas (except to further the performance of said architectures), so this is really refreshing to see.

I still have my R4000 and R10000 SGI systems running IRIX. I'd love to get an R16000 one day.</comment>


The Village Sin Eater - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-worst-paid-freelance-gig-in-history-was-being-the-village-sin-eater <comment><USER2> IIRC, one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels (a.k.a the Master and Commander series) sees a former sin-eater among the crew: ostracised by his crew-mates, he is taken on as a surgeon's mate by Dr Maturin.

<comment><USER3> Another occurrence in pop culture: The Order, with Heath Ledger, focused on a Sin Eater. Not a great movie, but I remember enjoying it enough in the theater.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304711/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304711/)

<comment><USER4> There was also a 'Night Gallery' episode centered sin eaters this with a typical Rod Serling (or who ever he copied in this case) twist ending.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah, I read about this long ago in a short story called "Eater of Souls" (maybe the one by Henry Kuttner [1937]?). I didn't read it in English, but a translation.

The central character is treated like untouchable scum because of his profession as eater of souls. Yet he is necessary. I seem to remember about the eater getting a reward of actual food. People would leave the eater of souls some food and stay the heck out of his way while he does his job not to have any interaction with him. So by eating souls he actually gets to eat.

A similar theme of discrimination against undertakers is explored in the Japanese film _Okuribito_ ("Departures").</comment>


Imagination acquires MIPS - <AUTHOR> http://www.investegate.co.uk/imagination-tech.plc-%28img%29/rns/acquisition/201211060700084055Q/

<comment><AUTHOR> For $60 million Imagination is buying the business, some of the patents, and the right to use all the other patents. These other patents are being sold for $350 million to a consortium of tech companies which includes ARM (which is contributing $167.5 million).</comment>


Linus: "[dbus] was written by a retarded monkey on crack" - <AUTHOR> http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1506.2/05492.html

<comment><USER2> And a bit higher in the thread, there's a perfect summary of all the responses from the previous kdbus pull request:

[http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1506.2/04958.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1506.2/04958.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> If anyone wonders about dbus/kdbus, this[1] was asked on r/linux yesterday.

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3auufg/eli12_dbus_vs...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3auufg/eli12_dbus_vs_kdbus_vs_sdbus/)</comment>


How to Stay Motivated - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/55-how-to-stay-motivated/

<comment><USER2> Three examples of extremely motivated people: Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, and Bill Gates. Everyone knows they're hyper-competitive; the common traits seem to be extreme reactions to slights real or imagined (using anger as fuel) and an extreme aversion to failure, finding it unbearably painful. They are antisocial, dealing with the public for business purposes, but not friendly. They also all had an unshakeable conviction that whatever they were doing was _the_ most important thing they could do, and they _wanted_ to do it more than anything else in the world. No divided focus! They all loved what they did.

Jordan: If another player talked smack, Jordan would make a point of humiliating that player on court next time they met. He also held grudges -- he froze out Sports Illustrated for years after they published an unfavorable article about his baseball career.

Armstrong: Like Jordan, but on a bike. To make a point, he'd beat someone by a huge margin, rather than coasting to a win. He held grudges, too, and wouldn't even let a rider way down in the ranks go for glory in a breakaway stage win if he was upset with them -- he'd set his team to chase them down, which meant everyone else had to chase too in order to keep up. All his Tour de France wins were after cancer; he was riding for people fighting cancer, which is what made it _the_ most important thing to him -- he had incredible discipline as a result, which he lacked before the illness. He couldn't stand the thought of coming in second in the Tour and he worried about his top opponents _purposely_ to make himself train harder.

Gates is likewise a well-known worrier. He thinks that at any time, a competitor could come out of the woodwork that would spell the end of Microsoft, just like what Microsoft itself did to so many others. Despite being at the top, he paddles as furiously as if he were just trying to keep his head above water.

They have all had unprecedented success. However, there is a cost -- they've made a lifetime habit of being selfish, pissed off and dissatisfied. This has consequences for every relationship, not just professional ones.

Inhabiting that headspace -- with all the worrying -- makes it a lot harder to enjoy life. They are probably no happier than you are right now; it seems you can choose to increase your "success" _or_ happiness, but not both at the same time; they are mutually exclusive. You simply will not strive as hard if you are happy where you are. Once the habit's ingrained, even if you decide you are successful enough and switch to pursuing happiness, you'll probably start out pissed off and dissatisfied thinking you aren't _happy enough_! Interestingly, the very pursuit of happiness _pre-empts_ happiness almost like a Catch-22. In chasing happiness, you guarantee you aren't feeling it. It's like "do or do not; there is no try" -- Yoda only one who decides what rules you have for it and when you'll _let yourself_ feel happy, or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> The "crazy friend" paragraph reminds of a chapter in Founders at Work. An interviewee comments that if you can't persuade one other friend to take the plunge with you on a startup idea, then the idea may not be worth pursuing. We're all looking for that crazy friend at some point.

None of the motivating factors listed are sustainable feelings. I don't see myself feeling anger for days or weeks needed to accomplish something meaningful. For most, anger motivates to act stupidly. Maybe, we're looking for inspiring factors. Inspiration would be mean that we are genuinely driven to accomplish something.</comment>


CSS3 Spotlight effect - <AUTHOR> http://svay.com/experiences/css3-spotlight/

<comment><USER2> Here is my quick attempt to reproduce the effect just with CSS2 and transparent PNGs:

<http://alteredqualia.com/visualization/css2-spotlight.html>

It's still a bit buggy around the edges, but it's much faster than CSS3 one.

Plus it works also in Opera (and probably could be forced to run in Explorer with a bit more care).

\-----

Edit: fixed bugs around edges and made it work in Explorer 8 (which is surprisingly the fastest).

About performance: the biggest difference is in Firefox (standard release 3.6.3, no development HW accelerated builds).

<comment><USER3> That is pretty cool and creative. One thing though is that you have more markup that does nothing and is only for the purpose of display.

You couldn't add your spotlight effect to css zen garden, but you could possibly add the CSS3 spotlight.

<comment><USER4> I think neither would qualify because both require a JavaScript component to actually work as a spotlight.

Neither of the submitted solutions are particularly novel, but I'd applaud the CSS2 version more for (if nothing else) the supported browser coverage.

IMHO, there are _FAR_ more interesting things in HTML5/CSS3 than gradients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case anybody's wondering, it works by moving a radial gradient with 0 alpha at the center using javascript. It's slow on Chrome, probably due to the effort required to redraw the gradient at every time step.

A better approach, at least for webkit browsers, would be to use the new mask property.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, it's pretty slow with Chrome. There's no "input lag" with hardware- accelerated Firefox though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone wanting a cross-browser, javascript implementation, I wrote a (very tiny and simple) jQuery plug-in to do it a few months back: <http://kellishaver.com/projects/flashlight/>

</comment><comment><USER8> CUTE- reminds me of the early Flash 3 stuff - A spotlight!!

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks awesome

</comment><comment><USER10> It looks cool as hell, but I can see it quickly becoming this generation's blink.

</comment><comment><USER11> web screencasts FTW</comment>


Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting - <AUTHOR> https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0 <comment><USER2> > a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that > 300 million people don't know who to listen to for basic facts that can save > their own lives.

The media has done this to themselves. For years they have eagerly profited not on the truth, but on the outrageous. Many news outlets will spin the truth any way they can to make it more outrageous, fear-inducing, or more (in their parlance) "breaking".

Lastly, the media should not be our source of truth, nor should the government be our source of truth. Truth needs not to be _told to_ individuals but _discovered by_ individuals after carefully considering information from multiple sources.

<comment><USER3> >Many news outlets will spin the truth any way they can to make it more outrageous, fear-inducing, or more (in their parlance) "breaking".

Breaking news just means a story is current, reported as events unfold or just happened, nothing to do with how outrageous or "fear-inducing" it is.

<comment><USER4> > reported as events unfold or just happened

Which means less time is allocated to investigation, fact-checking, and comparing reports from different sources.

<comment><USER3> Well yes, but that's still not "spin(ning) the truth any way they can to make it more outrageous, fear-inducing."

The term exists because it refers to special news reports which would "break into" regular programming, it goes all the way back to radio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a dupe of a flagged post from 3 hours ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22842336](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22842336)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. I had looked for this before I posted it. I'm guessing it was flagged so I couldn't find it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't buy that there is some mass conspiracy to gaslight us.

Mass media has been a source of inaccurate, biased, hysterical drivel since the invention of the printing press. That's always going to be true, no matter who runs it.

The US has survived epidemics before, and far worse catastrophes.

<comment><USER7> I was just reading the autobiography of William T Sherman during the civil war he was constantly complaining about the press. The New York Times ran an unsubstantiated smear article on him. The confederate newspapers said they were winning the war, and sometimes the locals only found out otherwise when his armies arrived

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Things will substantially return to normal once there is virtually infinite, less than 15 minute testing.

Sure there will be economic wreckae everywhere but we've seen that before. It presents opportunity and optimism.

Remember "RIP good times"? People always feel like things will never get back on track when they're inside the bad part.

</comment><comment><USER9> the author completely lost me at _" I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken."_

<comment><USER8> Yep not everyone does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't understand why this article is flagged, or why it's getting the derision from the HN crowd.

The article rings true to me, it describes a distilled version of the world we lived in a mere two months ago. The desperation that will exist to get back to the lifestyles we were familiar with and the gross reality of consumerism that will be there to hold our hands through the re-transition. And it's nothing new, it will just be a more condensed, hyper, desperate version of the hyper, desperate consumerism we had before.

"This is our chance to define a new version of normal"

If the new normal is just progress towards the old normal, then we've learnt nothing.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure there will be political gaslighting, blame shifting an credit taking but in terms of advertising its just business as usual.</comment>


Musk: Osborning His Model 3 - <AUTHOR> https://mondaynote.com/musk-osborning-his-model-3-5e7c76fbaf8b <comment><USER2> Model Y was a known character before the announcement, so its official unveiling if anything had kind of the opposite effect. It put a pin to hoping for it to be available soon enough to hold off buying a Model 3 today and it is sufficiently advertised at a more expensive price to deter some more.

Tesla's currently in a weird situation where it is in a local minimum of US purchases that it needs to book to make the quarter, while it has unsatisfied demand in EU and elsewhere but the delivery pipeline is not mature yet. Once that global shipping pipeline starts to fire on all cylinders (pun intended), it probably gives them enough runway to get to the Model Y without too much worry of shrinking demand in the US.

<comment><USER3> Exactly, the stock market's reaction to the model Y showed that many people were expecting "one more thing" from the announcement.

And if you read the reddit thread, you will find exactly what you suggested; there were several people waiting for the model Y announcement who decided to order the 3 immediately instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Model S was their flagship mass market car, and the Model 3 is a "Budget Model S". The Model X is their flagship SUV, and the Model Y a "Budget Model X". I don't get why this is "Osborning the Model 3". They serve different market segments.

<comment><USER5> _They serve different market segments._

Do they really. They're basically the same size and visually quite similar (There seems no reasonable definition of SUV where the Model Y would qualify). I cannot think of many scenarios where the choice between a Model 3 and a Model Y is an easy and obvious choice (assuming both are actually available at roughly the same price point).

<comment><USER6> The Model Y has a 7 seat option, the Model 3 does not.

<comment><USER7> That is only relevant if you expect most Model Ys to be sold as seven seaters. The point of the analysis piece was that CUVs are more popular than traditional sedans.

Their popularity, at least here in Europe, has nothing to do with their similarities to true SUVs. Instead, people buy them because they want something that _looks_ like an SUV (or true off-roader) but they can't afford the purchase or running costs. The Nissan Qashqai, Citroen C-Crosser, VW T-Roq etc sell well not because they have seven seat options, or whatever, but because they look sturdier/safer than their traditional rivals.

That's the point of the Monday Note piece: the market has shown that there's strong demand for crossover cars and, in the author's opinion, buyers might wait for their prefered format of car rather than settle for the sedan today.

<comment><USER8> Hatchback is simply more practical than sedan if you want to fit a large stroller, bring a few items from Ikea or even a smaller kitchen appliance.

<comment><USER9> Crossover/suv doesn't really imply hatchback though, at least not in Europe, 4 door cars aren't as popular, so the primary reason to buy an suv, isn't to get a hatchback.

<comment><USER8> Lots of these are SUVs in name only (small, underpowered, often 2WD and no towing hitch) and are really good old hatchbacks with facelift.

<comment><USER9> Agreed.

I read your previous comment as suggesting the reason why people bought SUVs was because they were hatchbacks. Did I misunderstand?

<comment><USER8> I called them hatchbacks because most of them are same type car and bought for same reasons. Very few people get to actually tow boats or drive to ski resorts with them.

<comment><USER9> My point was its like saying people are buying SUVs because they have 4 wheels. Nearly all cars have 4 wheels, so the presence of 4 wheels isn't a reason to buy an SUV.

Your original parent was talking about SUVs and crossovers specifically. Not all hatchbacks are SUVs / crossovers, so it gets confusing when you start mixing the 2

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I doubt that Tesla needs much more demand at the moment. The demand for Model 3 already exceeds Tesla's production capacity. Until the Chinese Giga Factory 3 is up and producing large numbers, Tesla cannot use an increase in demand for much. Next year, Giga Factory 3 will be producing significant numbers, but that may still only be sufficient to meet the demand from the Chinese market.

So Tesla will likely have to build a Giga Factory 4 in Europe or America to really meet the Western demands. Such factory, which is still not formally announced, needs to be built first and will not produce large numbers until 3-4 years from now.

Apart from the obvious production constraints, Tesla has the constraint of expanding the supercharger network and the constraint of expanding their workshops, so that they can service the huge amount of new cars on the roads.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can only read first two sentences of the article. How am I supposed to comment it?

Edit: I think I'll write link based rss filter, it seems that all medium links are either from medium.com or they match this regexp: /^http[s]+:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9]+\\.[a-z]{2,3}\/[a-zA-Z0-9-]+-[a-f0-9]{12}$/

<comment><USER12> Try turning off Javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I disagree with a few of the assumptions made here.

> germans will never come out with cost-competitive electric cars

1\. because they don't have a Giga factory

2.because they would cannibalise their own petrol car demand

3\. they want to push hybrids as the future but its never going to be cost effective as a pure electric tesla

4\. china could level the playing field but due to large tariffs, it is unlikely they would make a significant impact in the next 5 years in US and EU.

> tesla stands to make the most amount of money from its performance variants > of the model 3 ( which is a cheaper porche in terms of performance). > producing cheaper model 3 puts pressure on the balance sheet by unveiling > the model y it reduces some of that pressure but keeps the company > profitable for longer.

<comment><USER14> A Model 3 costs 53000€ in Germany. A VW e-Golf with half the range of a model 3 starts at 35000€. VW (+Toyota and others) are late, but are investing billions to make electric cars available to the mass.

Unless Tesla is able to cut the Model 3 price by about 50% they won't be of much relevance in the grand scheme. They will remain a luxury brand similar to Apple in the customer electronics market.

However, they won't be as successful. Apple's products are still cheap enough that many low-income customers who realistically don't have the money to afford an iphone still buy one. I don't think this will happen with cars. For most people cars will always be a tool first and an accessory second.

<comment><USER15> Apart from meeting publicly stated goals (e.g. the $35k Model 3), why would you even think twice about trying to compete with VW on price, when demand for your current products, at the current price, outstrips supply?

<comment><USER7> How about because your company's valuation demands that it become more than a niche player?

<comment><USER15> If you can't supply enough product to satisfy the demand at lower price levels, you keep the price high for the current demand.

Especially if you're in Tesla's position where they're seeking economies of scale and efficiency over time.

That is the path to becoming more than a niche player, in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One could argue the future Y buyer wouldn't have bought a 3 anyways, this could be keeping them out of competitors CUVs in the interim.

</comment><comment><USER17> One is a 7 seater, one is not. One is costly, one is not. One is not a replacement for the other. What is the Osborne effect here exactly?

<comment><USER18> You may have missed that part of the article:

> _Once derisively called Cute Utes, CUV's have become a wildly popular car > genre, so much so that Ford will stop selling conventional sedans — with the > exception of the still-loved Mustang — due to the "unstoppable crossover > onslaught"._

The author doesn't argue that they are the same, but that one is cannibalizing the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> slightly different market, very common infrastructure and design

</comment><comment><USER20> Tesla is done. They have not done a capital raise and CapEx is too low for Model Y. You can't produce cars without first investing in plant & equipment.

<comment><USER21> >CapEx is too low for Model Y

Source?

They said multiple times that they have enough cash already to start and ramp up Model Y production.

NB: the Nevada Gigafactory is already built (that's where Model Y will be assembled), they already got the money for the Shanghai factory (enough for 3K/week vehicles and battery packs at end of this year). They will soon announce the European factory (hints of European production for end of 2020 in the Model Y press releases, probably financed with local bank loans just like in China).

We've heard "Tesla is done" since 2009 and yet, they keep eating into the competition's profits, and keep increasing their market share in the EV market at an evergrowing speed.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Forgets to Renew Certificate, Teams Goes Offline - <AUTHOR> https://www.petri.com/microsoft-forgets-to-renew-certificate-teams-goes-offline <comment><USER2> Dumbfounding to me that an org as regimented as Microsoft could let something like this happen. And great timing after my employer spent last week training our non-technical staff on it. :)</comment>